1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an automatic polishing machine which is used to polish a surface of a skin or the like, for example, of a body of an airplane.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Equipment is conventionally provided for automatically polishing a surface of a flat metal plate of a comparatively small size or a cylindrical or tubular work machined by a machine tool for finishing. In such conventional equipment, a rotating buff and a work to be polished are commonly moved relative to each other in a plane, and accordingly, it is impossible in practical use to polish a metal plate, such as a skin of a body of an airplane, which is long and wide and is curved significantly in three dimensions. Therefore, such a skin is polished by a manual operation using a portable electrically driven polishing apparatus wherein a buff is only rotated by a motor. However, the operation is a very heavy and time-consuming cumbersome operation because an area to be polished is very large.